Rev. 22:18-19 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Is anyone who adds to or subtracts from Scripture cursed? It all depends. We have lots of ways to interpret this passage:
- Are those who add or subtract from the whole Bible cursed?
- Are just those who add or subtract from the book of Revelation cursed?
- Since translations are not exactly word-for-word the same as the original, are the translators cursed?
- There are portions of Scripture which were added accidentally. Are those who made those additions cursed?
Are those who add or subtract from the whole Bible cursed? This relates to the second question since Revelation is included in the whole Bible, so I would say, yes. Now who might this be? I think it would include translators who have purposely altered a passage to match the beliefs of a person or organization. The New World Translation would be among these. The “translators” added words and subtracted words purposely to change the meaning of the original to match the beliefs of their organization.
Are just those who add or subtract from the book of Revelation cursed? I don’t see how you can get out of this one. I do believe intent must be present, however. Can someone accidentally change the book of Revelation and be held accountable. I would say no. God looks at our hearts. If we were not to accept accidental errors or misunderstandings as what they truly are, we would be in a sorry state. Ours is a God of grace.
Early on, when copies of Scripture were being made, a Scriptorium might be set up with several copyists present. A leader would read the Scripture and copyists would write down what they heard. Sometimes they might hear “warm” rather than “warn” and write “warm” down when “warn” was the word in the text of Rev. 22:18. God is gracious about this I’m sure. As a matter of fact, we have more than 5,000 handmade copies of the New Testament, and none of them is exactly like another. The reasons include this sort of error, misspellings, missed words, duplicated words, and others.
Since translations are not exactly word-for-word the same as the original, are the translators cursed? Since many of the Old Testament quotes in the New Testament are from the Septuagint, the Greed translation of the Old Testament, I would say translations are permissible. If it was good enough for Jesus, Paul, and others, we should see this as a precedent and follow their lead. The earliest translation of the New Testament was by Jerome and is dated at the end of the fourth century. This was a translation from Greek into Latin and was done for the Western Church, later known as the Catholic Church.
Before Jerome’s translation, the Christian world spoke Greek, so a translation wasn’t really needed. As the Romans became more and more present, their common language, Latin, was widely understood.
There are portions of Scripture which were added accidentally. Are those who made those additions cursed? There are portions of the New Testament we are pretty sure were not in the original. A good example would be Mark 16:9-20. We believe someone may have added this to their personal copy of Mark very early on and generations of copies made from that manuscript.
There are many who believe this passage was is included in the original, so don’t take my opinion as certain. Many respected scholars have taken the conservative approach to include this passage until it is absolutely proven otherwise.
With that said, those who believe it was not in the original manuscript of Mark have a few strong arguments:
- Verse 12 states that Jesus appeared in another form when on the road to Emaus: After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. It is central to Christian theology that Jesus rose in the same form as died on the cross.
- Verse 16 links baptism with salvation.
- Verse 18 says believers can drink poison and pick up deadly snakes and not be harmed. This verse has caused the lives of many snake handlers in the Christian community.
The earliest and best New Testament manuscripts do not include this passage.
Why is this important?
We need to understand legalism, or more accurately letterism, can keep us from God’s teachings and expressing His mercy. Yes there have been those in the past who have added to Scripture and taken away from it. Those who did it for their own devices to profit personally or for their group will be held powerfully accountable, but those who have made innocent mistakes will, no doubt, not be accountable for those mistakes.
In many ways, our God does seem like a very literal God. But, our God is also a God of grace and forgiveness. Even those who have willingly perverted Scripture for their own benefit can still be forgiven if only they take the single step toward their Savior.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 